Chapter 257 — Inquiries
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Dou Yan felt she had done something foolish and was thoroughly dispirited.
But Tao Jun was even more dispirited than she.
He had left the capital on the twenty-fifth day of the eighth month, riding fast, and reached Zhending in only four days.
Once inside the city, he put up at a teahouse and began asking about the Zhending Dou family: "...none other than the native place of Grand Secretary Dou Yuanji of the Wenhua Hall, Minister of Justice in the present court!"
The teahouse waiter glanced at Tao Jun, dressed as he was in the garb of a scholar, and, while deftly brewing his tea, said with a smile, "The old gentleman isn't a local, is he? Who in Zhending Prefecture doesn't know the Dou clan of the North Tower? Our teahouse owner's wife is the daughter of one of the Dou family's stewards, and my own forebears once sold cotton to the Dou household. You've certainly come to the right man!"
Only then did Tao Jun truly feel how deep and wide the Dou family's roots ran in Zhending.
He smiled and said, "I am from Jiangnan, and have kept a school in the capital for many years. Now that I am old, I have given up my school and returned to my native parts. Some days ago I saw the Dou mansion marrying off a daughter—ten li of red dowry, grander than the families of our Jiangnan when they marry off a daughter—and so I thought I would ask about it."
The waiter laughed at this and said, "You mean the Dou family's Fourth Miss, surely? The Fourth Miss was betrothed from childhood to the Marquis of Jining in the capital, only the old Marquis died, and the Fourth Miss kept mourning for three years. Last year the Grand Madam herself escorted her to the capital to be married. By my reckoning, the Dou Fourth Miss ought to be married by now."
So the tale of the Dou sisters' exchanged marriages had not yet reached Zhending—or perhaps the Dou clan had long since heard of it, but could not think how to answer their neighbors and kin, and so kept silent.
Tao Jun was just about to ask about Dou Zhiwei when he heard someone beside him say, "A pity the Second Grand Madam isn't at home. Otherwise, when the Dou Fourth Miss was married out, the capital would surely have sent word of the happy news, and the Dou family would have set out running banquets, built a stage for opera, handed out red packets far and wide—and we could have gone along for the excitement!"
There had come with Tao Jun a single attendant—a trusted man, who of course knew why Tao Jun had come. Tao Jun, hard put to hide his astonishment, thought for a moment and said with a smile, "The Dou family must be truly wealthy. No wonder they could make such a grand show—there was even a carrying-pole load of silver drafts among the dowry."
His words were like water dropped into hot oil, and the room crackled and spat.
"A load of silver drafts? Why would they include a load of silver drafts in a dowry?" someone asked in wonder. "Old gentleman, what is this all about?"
Everyone in the teahouse, locals and travelers alike, turned to look at Tao Jun.
So Tao Jun told the whole tale of the dowry.
Some were envious, some sighed, and some said sourly, "The Dou family has silver to spare—what's a load of silver drafts to them? In years gone by, when Lord Yaocheng of the Dou family entertained at home the Transport Commissioner of the Salt Bureau, who was passing through Zhending on his way to take up his post at Huai'an, he not only brought an opera troupe down from the capital to perform, but lit more than a thousand glazed lotus lamps in the water pavilion. Mirrored against the stars in the sky, you could scarcely tell whether you stood on earth or in heaven. That was a truly grand show..."